STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — After 20 years apart, ex-Island musicians Vinnie Zummo, John Trentacosta and Gary Deinstadt are playing together next Sunday at Alor Cafe.

Fans may wonder: Will they find their way into the old grooves and (comfortably) into new ones? The musicians are not worried. They spent their formative years together.

The connection doesn’t weaken, according to Trentacosta, the farthest-flung of the three. He e-mailed this explanation from Santa Fe, where he’s lived since 1992:

“The three of us played together so much, and for so many years, that when we sit down to play, no matter how many years are in between, it always feels like yesterday. We grew up learning how to play jazz together.”

All came of age on the Island in the 1970s, give or take a few years. They were not initially interested in the same music.

“I was a stone rocker,” said Zummo, a guitarist, “but John physically put me in his car and MADE me listen to jazz, MADE me listen to live jazz and MADE me play it with players who were way above my skill level at the time.”

The company you keep is crucial.

“Jazz is not really something you can do all by yourself,” said Deinstadt, who plays keyboards. “Of course you also need to practice and develop the skill set, learn the language and listen to the masters: Miles, Coltrane, Bird, Ellington. etc.”

At one point, all three were studying privately with established musicians in Manhattan.

“We would try to schedule our lessons on the same day so that we could drive into the city together,” Deinstadt said. “Afterwards we would spend most of our hard-earned local gig money buying records/CDs. Whatever we had left went towards jazz club cover charges and drink minimums.”

At one point, they had paying gigs together, with Island bandleader Al Lambert and with Australian-American singer Lana Cantrell.

Eventually, jobs, obligations other ties pulled the three into different situations. Zummo went to work for Joe Jackson. Deinstadt became an Emmy-award winning producer on “The Guiding Light,” and Trentacosta, a drummer who played for many years with the Staten Island Chamber Players Jazz Quartet, moved to New Mexico.

Today, he leads his own quintet, hosts a weekly jazz program on Santa Fe Public Radio and teaches at a local college. By his account, he’s “a big fish in a small pond, the first-call jazz drummer for everyone who comes through town — Lee Konitz, Bud Shank, Roger Kellerway & Nick Brignola and Giacomo Gates.”

The unnamed trio will be joined by bass-player Cameron Brown, a member of Zummo’s current band for a pair of sets at 7 and 8:30 p.m. next Sunday at Alor Cafe, 2110 Richmond Rd., New Springville; 718-351-1101. The agenda will be “standard Bop” (i.e. Be-Bop) with several original works by Zummo.